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til True, til False: Timeline of future in forecasts

til true, til false..

As far back as the nineteenth century, scholars and scientists made predictions about the future. Lord Kelvin, "One Heck of a Prognosticator, president of the Royal Society in the 1890s, and disbeliever in virtually every scientific discovery," claimed that “Radio has no future,” “I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning,” and “X-rays will prove to be a hoax;” Orville Wright, in 1908 claimed that “No flying machine will ever fly from New York to Paris;” and Irving Thalberg, MGM movie producer, asserted in 1927 that “Novelty is always welcome, but talking pictures are just a fad.”[1] Thus, making forecasts of the future has a historic basis in which many of the predictions by even experts have proven inaccurate.